Biography

American music journalist and writer.

Williams created the first national US magazine of rock music criticism "Crawdaddy!" in January 1966 on the campus of Swarthmore College with the help of some of his fellow science fiction fans. The first issue was ten mimeographed pages written entirely by Williams. He left the magazine in 1968 and reclaimed the title in 1993, but had to end it in 2003 due to financial difficulties.

He was also the author of more than 25 books, of which the best-known are Outlaw Blues, Das Energi, and Bob Dylan: Performing Artist, the acclaimed three-part series. Williams was a leading authority on the works of musicians Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, and Neil Young, and science fiction writers Philip K. Dick and Theodore Sturgeon. His last book was The 20th Century's Greatest Hits (a "Top 40" list that includes movies, books & other documents).

In 1981 he edited and published, with David G. Hartwell, the first book edition of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with a foreword by Jimmy Carter.

In August 1968 at the 26th World Science Fiction Convention he introduced himself to Philip K. Dick, beginning a friendship that lasted through the rest of Dick's life. In 1974 Williams interviewed Dick for Rolling Stone magazine. Williams was Dick's literary executor for several years after Dick's death and used that position to get several of the author's previously unpublished neorealist novels into print. From 1983 to 1992 Williams ran the Philip K. Dick Society along with Keith Bowden in the UK. PKDS had some thousands of members internationally and was a significant influence in publicising Dick's work internationally. It published 30 quarterly Newsletters including some previously unpublished Dick material.

In 1986, Williams published one of the first biographies of Dick, entitled Only Apparently Real: The World of Philip K. Dick. Williams is a featured interviewee in two documentaries about Dick: a biographical documentary BBC2 released in 1994 as part of its Arena arts series called Arena - Philip K Dick: A day in the afterlife and The Penultimate Truth About Philip K. Dick another biographical documentary film produced in 2007.

Williams had three marriages, three children. He died on March 27, 2013, at his home in California at age 64 from complications related to a 1995 bicycle accident.